Boston Chamber of Commerce v. City of Boston

• Decision Date: 04 April 1910
• Docket Number: No. 99,99
• Citation: 217 U.S. 189,54 L.Ed. 725,30 S.Ct. 459
• Parties: BOSTON CHAMBER OF COMMERCE, the Central Wharf & Wet Dock Corporation, and the Boston Five Cents Savings Bank, Plffs. in Err., v. CITY OF BOSTON
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

217 U.S. 189

30 S.Ct. 459

54 L.Ed. 725

BOSTON CHAMBER OF COMMERCE, the Central Wharf & Wet Dock Corporation, and the Boston Five Cents Savings Bank, Plffs. in Err.,

v CITY OF BOSTON.

No. 99.

Argued March 2, 3, 1910.

Decided April 4, 1910.

Messrs. Charles A. Williams and Charles S. Hamlin for plaintiffs in error.

[Argument of Counsel from page 190 intentionally omitted] Mr. Thomas M. Babson for defendant in error.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 191-193 intentionally omitted] Mr. Justice Holmes delivered the opinion of the court:

This is a petition for the assessment of damages caused by the laying out of a public street over 2,955 square feet of land at the apex of a triangle between India street and Central Wharf street, in Boston, the latter being a private way between Milk street and Atlantic avenue, laid out by the same order, as part of the same street. The chamber of commerce had a building at the base of the triangle, and owned the fee of the land taken. The Central Wharf & Wet Dock Corporation, which owned other land abutting on the new street, had an easement of way, light, and air over the land in question, and the Boston Five Cents Savings Bank held a mortgage on the same, subject to the easement. These three were the only parties having any interests in the land. They filed an agreement in the case that the damages might be assessed in a lump sum, the city of Boston refusing to assent, and they contended that it was their right, as matter of law, under the Massachusetts statute, Rev. Laws chap. 48, §§ 20-22, and the 14th Amendment, to recover the full value of the land taken, considered as an unrestricted fee. The city, on the other hand, offered to show that the restriction being of great value to the Central Wharf & Wet Dock Corporation, the damage to the market value of the estate of the chamber of commerce was little or nothing, and contended that the damages must be assessed according to the condition of the title at act date of the order laying out the street. It contended that the jury could consider the improbability of the easement being released, as it might affect the mind of a possible purchaser of the servient estate, and that the dominant owner could recover nothing, as it lost nothing by the superposition of a public easement upon its own. The parties agreed that if the petitioners were right, the damages should be assessed at $60,000, without interest; but, if the city was right, they should be $5,000. The judge before whom the case was tried ruled in favor of the city, and this ruling was sustained by the supreme judicial court, upon report. 195 Mass. 338, 81 N. E. 244. A judgment was entered in the court where the record remained, and then the case was brought here.

We assume in favor of the petitioners, the plaintiffs in error, that their only remedy was under the statute; and we give them the benefit of the doubt in interpreting the decision of the court, so far as to take it to mean that the statutes of Massachusets authorize the taking of land held as this was, with no other compensation than according to the principle laid down. In short, we assume in their favor that the constitutional question is open, and that the case properly is not to be dismissed. But we are of opinion that upon the only possible question before us here the decision was right.

Of course, we accept the construction given to the Massachusetts statute by the state court. Maiorano v. Baltimore & O. R. Co. 213 U. S. 268, 272, 53 L. ed. 792, 795, 29 Sup. Ct. Rep. 424. The only question to be considered is whether, when a man's...